Huang Ying smiled slightly as he watched the small sparrow jump around and flap its wing, pecking off small pieces of meat and swallowing them whole. He put one hand to his chin and gave it a few rubs, his eyes roaming over the body of the sparrow as his thoughts moved.

"I'm Huang Ying, pleasure to make your acquaintance. Let's see, how about you be Hong Yi in the future? Can't really keep calling you Sparrow or You in the future."

The little sparrow didn't stop feeding on the chunks of meat that had been tossed to it, but it did seem to mull over the name, its head tilting slightly. After spending a few seconds thinking it over the sparrow ended up nodding its head vigorously, jumping in place while chirping. Huang Ying nodded his head upon seeing Hong Yi accept the name, contacting Li Jun at the same time.

"Do you know of any way I can check out the actual extent of the wound? I wanna see if just setting the broken bone with a twig is enough."

Since Hong Yi had agreed to follow him then Huang Ying, of course, had to do his best to fix up that broken wing. Huang Ying had a few sparse memories about normal medicine and some more common illness symptom, but none that detailed anything that would help him in a situation like this. Li Jun spoke up after only a short second, not sounding too hopeful.

"Others here might not be able to, but you can indeed check up on the wound. You can do what you did during the entrance tests, focus all your perception on the target in front of you and then try to have your perception enter their body. It won't work if the target is within a certain range of your strength, but it should be fairly easy with this weak birdy. Just don't get your hopes up."

Huang Ying nodded his head in understanding and turned his gaze onto the swiftly dwindling corpse getting devoured behind him. He focused his perception on the corpse and slowly seeped it into one of the beast's paws. An image of the veins, muscles, and bones within the paw quickly started to form within Huang Ying's mind, allowing him to understand the inside of the beast.

Only after understanding that Li Jun's suggestion indeed worked did he pull back his perception and turn his gaze onto Hong Yi. His perception washed over Hong Yi and entered its body, a complete image of its insides forming within Huang Ying's mind. Only now that he saw the full image of Hong Yi's insides did he realize that Hong Yi was actually a female, not a male like he initially guessed. Luckily he had given her a rather gender-neutral name, so there wouldn't be any chance for any awkward misunderstandings in the future.

He swiftly focused his attention on Hong Yi's right wing and inspected the actual extent of the damages. His expression couldn't help but sink slightly upon seeing how bad the damage actually was, it was far worse than it looked on the outside. Not only all the bones within the wing were broken, but the fracture even extended along the shoulder and even parts of her chest. All the fractures had started to heal, but they were doing so in the wrong direction and the extent of the damage made it so that just setting the wing with a twig would not be enough to fix it. Huang Ying pulled back his perception, rubbing the back of his head while sighing lightly.

"Alright, that's pretty bad. How on earth did you manage to fuck yourself that badly? Well, not like it really matters, seems like we gotta start looking for some good medicine after leaving this forest, the academy probably has something."

Huang Ying held out his arm after he finished speaking, presenting his palm to Hong Yi. She glanced at his palm for a bit before picking up one of the larger chunks of meat and carrying it with her as she hopped onto his palm. He raised her up and placed her on his left shoulder, picking up the other chunks of meat strewn about before he stood up and walked over to the leather bag he had dropped earlier. He stuffed the pieces of meat into the bag, removing the oldest piece of meat at the same time. He noticed Hong Yi staring hungrily at the meat-filled bag so he let out a soft chuckle to calm her down, speaking to Li Jun at the same time.

"Don't worry, you can eat as much as you want in the future, just focus on the meat you already have for now. Grampa Jun, can you point me in the direction of the nearest Demonic beast group, I wanna check just how strong my body's become now."

The dog-like Demonic beast was almost fully devoured by now and Huang Ying could sense a tremendous force course through his body, it was far stronger than anything he had felt while devouring the other Demonic beasts up until now. His body had been badly wounded during the battle with the beast, but he was certain that it had only grown stronger after regenerating. There was a slight silence from Li Jun before he responded, as if he was scanning the surrounding area.

"There's one about 15 kilometers to your south, they should be just right for you to test your strength."

Huang Ying nodded his head upon receiving the response, a glimmer of disappointment flashing past his eyes but then swiftly vanishing. He turned his attention southward and then started walking, his perception keeping a close eye on his surroundings.

He found that the range of his perception had once again increased after devouring the dog-like beast, it had stretched to encompass the surrounding 17 meters, this sole beast increasing the range by nearly 2 meters. As the group of two were heading southward, the sound of Huang Ying's voice would occasionally echo through the area.

"Alright alright, calm down, I've got more meat here."

"Oy, don't go pecking the ear, just let out a chirp when you're done."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Fucking hell, how are you this ravenous? At this point, you've eaten enough meat to create three of you."

"For crying out loud, stop jumping around like that, you're gonna fall off and fuck up your wing even more. Is that what you want, an even more fucked up wing?"

Huang Ying was utterly astounded by just how much this apple-sized sparrow was able to eat, she was chewing through the meat he had stored up in his leather bag like it was nothing. He couldn't help but wonder if all Demonic beasts ate this much or if it was just Hong Yi that was being a glutton.

The group quickly moved through the forest, the trees starting to grow sparser again. Thanks to this, Huang Ying was able to see the group of Demonic beasts that Li Jun was leading him to before they even entered his perception. The group in question consisted of about 11 large light brown wolves that moved in a tight formation, sniffing the air around them as they moved.

Each of the wolves had reached the 4th Mortal Step, the leader of the group having already reached the 5th Mortal Step. Upon closer inspection of the group Huang Ying managed to notice that there was actually a 12th wolf in the group, it was just that this wolf was trailing a good distance behind the rest of the group. Huang Ying could easily see that this wolf was the black sheep of the group, quite literally as the wolf actually had black fur rather than brown, it had also only reached the 2nd Mortal Step.

It was a bit smaller and far thinner, with several bald spots on its body where its fur had fallen out, possibly due to malnutrition. It had a few scars on its body, the shape and size of the scars matching the appearance of the claws that the other wolves had. From the looks of it, these Demonic beasts were far from welcoming towards this fellow who was different from them. When he noticed them, they too noticed him, growling hungrily at him. Huang Ying picked up Hong Yi and placed her on a nearby branch, a grin slowly forming on his face as he dropped the leather bag that was now only half-filled with meat.

"You wait right here, I'll go and pick up some more meat for us."

Hong Yi let out a few chirps while hopping up and down on the branch, waving her left wing as if she was cheering for Huang Ying. Huang Ying turned towards the slowly approaching group of wolves after he put away Hong Yi, drawing both his blades and assembling his spear while pointing one of the sharp tips at the wolves.

"So, who's first? Or do you all wanna be good doggies and follow me?"

The black wolf growled deeply upon hearing Huang Ying's taunt but was quickly shut up by one of the other wolves snarling at it. The alpha of the group let his eyes roam over Huang Ying, letting out a swift bark as an order to the rest of the pack. The 11 wolves all charged forward the moment the alpha barked, only the black-furred one staying behind somewhat unwillingly.

Huang Ying welcomed the 11 wolves and stepped forward to face them, his spear stabbing out and aiming for the head of the wolf at the very front. The wolf quickly jumped up to evade the spear but Huang Ying simply slid his left arm forward and disassembled his spear, grabbing onto the end of the frontmost blade and tilting it upward. The wolf had no way to escape while in the air and had its stomach slit open by the sharp blade, its warm blood and organs spilling down and staining Huang Ying's arm.

The alpha seemed to have waited for this moment, suddenly speeding up quite a bit and dashing past Huang Ying's weapons. He opened his maw and snarled as he bit down on Huang Ying's left thigh with all his might. He expected to tear so deeply into Huang Ying's flesh that he would be able to shatter his bone and maybe even tear off the leg, but the end result completely shocked him.

His bones pierced Huang Ying's skin and flesh, but they were unable to penetrate all the way to his bone, they weren't even able to sink halfway into his flesh. The wolf had never encountered a human with such tough flesh, only other Demonic beasts could possibly have bodies that were this chewy and durable. Huang Ying looked down at the wolf and his leg, grinning through the pain.

"So that's it, huh? My body's on the verge of becoming pretty beastly, isn't it?"

The wolf felt a bad sense of foreboding and let go of Huang Ying's leg, but it was already too late for it to flee now that it had gotten this close. The earth beneath it opened up and swallowed its legs, locking it in place as Huang Ying's sludge-like and grim law of devouring started to bubble forth from the earth and started making its way up the body of the wolf. Huang Ying ignored the wolf that was starting to get devoured, placing his attention on the remaining wolves and stepping forward.

With the death of the alpha and one other wolf, the remaining wolves couldn't help but get scared and disarrayed. Three more wolves swiftly fell to Huang Ying's two-headed spear before they started to scatter and flee, too scared to keep doing battle. In only a few moments, only Huang Ying, four corpses, and the black-furred wolf remained. The alpha had already been fully devoured, the sludge-like darkness covered in eyes and maws crawling over and joining up with Huang Ying's shadow.

The black-furred wolf growled deeply as it glared at Huang Ying, refusing to flee as the rest had done. Huang Ying's gaze swept over the thin and scarred wolf that glared at him, his gaze momentarily sweeping across the surroundings before a soft laughter escaped his lips.

"Broken, abandoned, yet unrelenting. It seems to me like I've got an affinity for such things, birds of a feather flock together I guess. What do you say, wanna tag along with me? Unlike them, I won't abandon or attack you, I'll also let you eat your fill."

Huang Ying put away his spear as he spoke, crouching down while holding out his right palm and using his left hand to point at the bag filled with meat a short distance behind him. The black-furred wolf seemed caught off guard by his proposal, staring at him in suspicion for a bit. Huang Ying stood up and walked back to the bag filled with meat, opening it and taking out a few handfuls that he tossed to the wolf.

"Here, consider it a sign of my sincerity."

The wolf backed up at first but then started to suspiciously sniff the meat while keeping a close eye on Huang Ying. But in the end, it couldn't find anything strange about the meat, and from Huang Ying, it only saw and sensed what he said, sincerity. The wolf then thought back to how easily Huang Ying dealt with the alpha of the pack and the rest of the pack. After seemingly going through everything in its head, the wolf looked directly at Huang Ying and then let out a long howl before it started to eat the meat that Huang Ying had tossed to it. Huang Ying knew what this signified, the grin on his face growing a bit.

"Heh, I did end up getting myself a good doggie after all. Alright, I'm Huang Ying, that birdy over there is Hong Yi and can be considered your sister, and you'll be Hei Ya in the future. Three people, three H's and Y's, it's a perfect combination."

Huang Ying picked up Hong Yi and placed her on his shoulder again, picking up the bag of meat and walking over to Hei Ya. A wolf, a sparrow, and a beast in human skin, a group of three broken and abandoned things had quietly formed within the forest.